Henry Arnott Hicks was a furrier and occasional politician based in Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

. Hicks was a candidate in the 1949 federal election

Canadian federal election, 1949

The Canadian federal election of 1949 was held on June 27 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 21st Parliament of Canada. It was the first election in Canada in almost thirty years in which the Liberal Party of Canada was not led by William Lyon Mackenzie King. King had...

 in the Hamilton-area riding of Wentworth

Wentworth (electoral district)

Wentworth was a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1904 to 1968. It was located near the City of Hamilton in the province of Ontario. This riding was first created in 1903 from parts of Wentworth North and Brant and Wentworth South ridings.Wentworth...

. A Liberal

Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...

, he came in second behind incumbent Progressive Conservative Frank Lennard

Frank Lennard

Frank Exton Lennard was a Conservative then a Progressive Conservative party member of the Canadian House of Commons. He was born in Dundas, Ontario and became a merchant and textile dyer by career....

 by 3,000 votes but finished ahead of future New Democratic Party

New Democratic Party

The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...

 leader David Lewis

David Lewis (politician)

David Lewis, CC was a Russian-born Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. He was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1936 to 1950, and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party in 1961...

. In 1950, Hicks ran for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party

Ontario Liberal Party

The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has formed the Government of Ontario since the provincial election of 2003. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and...

 but withdrew after the first ballot in which he received 28 votes at the party's leadership convention. Hicks ran on a platform of tax reform urging the reduction of property tax

Property tax

A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...

. He also campaigned on spending more money to recruit teachers and on denying liquor licences to establishments that provide poor service.